The day began sitting under my husband’s Bible teaching. I watched that handsome man open living Words and offer a few thirsty souls something good to drink. A word about encouragement, how God is our everlasting hope. The One we cry out to, the One we offer the hard praises…the praises that come out of humbled down souls in need. I drank it up…I think we all did, our beloved small group.

The day ended with a beautiful friend…. We sat down to two cups of white chocolate mocha. My second one of the evening. Two rare cups of hot coffee in one night and sleeping babies. My eye was aching with a too old contact, but nothing could steal the bubbly joy and laughter we share. We sat down to open our hearts, to open mouths and pour the beautiful hard stuff of life. Better than hot cups of coffee are souls ablaze with Jesus. We catch each other’s fire, don’t we?!

And I think about the day and about women everywhere reading all sorts of things about the best home design plans, how to cure the common cold, the best ways to organize living spaces and how to prevent toddler tantrums (p.s. you can’t)…and we’re clicking about on the internet, searching for encouragement. My husband is right we are downright discouraged, some of us anyway, off and on again and looking for the way out of it. Wondering if we pin better lists if we might have a better life? And the answer is unless Jesus is the list, no…no, we won’t.

If Jesus isn’t THE LIST we won’t have life at all.

We will ever live in our murky imperfections, scraping by.

We’re all kind of starved for a kind word, a cheerful face, someone to really rejoice with us, someone to share our aches. We’re hungry to know that we’re not alone and that all will be ok. And the truth really is we are going to be ok if we’re willing to see that we’re not ok. And I sound like I am trying to be poetic, but I’m really just saying plain we’re going to be ok if we see that we need Jesus because we’re not ok.

Confessing sins to one another doesn’t heal unless repentance accompanies that confession. It does no good for us to wallow in each other’s misery of how our tempers are short, how we wish we had done more of this and less of that. There is no encouragement to be gained from us relishing in each other’s sins and failures. Yeah, we don’t want to feel alone, but y’all we’re not alone. The encouragement we really need isn’t another article about how we’re all just deplorable (smile)…trying to feel better because that girl, whoever she is, isn’t doing well either…It’s not true encouragement if we leave it there. In fact, if you leave it there, it’s kind of downright depressing. Think about it…how is encouraging for me to say, ‘Yeah, I was impatient with the kids again…AHHHH!’ And then leave it there…that is not biblical encouragement.

Yeah, we’re not ok. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. Jesus died for us…every one of us and three days later He overcame everything that ever pinned us down. It’s ok to be authentic, but what is true authenticity for a believer? What is being real for a Christ follower? It’s not wallowing in the murky waters of sin and despair. It’s standing up and realizing our life is in the King. There’s nothing to hang your head about. Turn your face up to Him. Your encouragement isn’t out there somewhere. It’s not this blog or the latest big article buzzing around. Your encouragement is Jesus…turn your face up to His.

You remember the song? Look full in His wonderful face…. Look at Him. See Him. Tell Him your eye is achy, watering, reddening and that you can’t see clearly like there’s this too old contact blurring your vision…it’s your sin…confess, yeah to a trusted friend, husband, mentor, but then turn and look again at Jesus in the glorious Word, in that Gospel that undoes every wrong thing about us, ultimately, in the end.

This I know, when you turn and look…faces are made radiant (Psalm 34), heads are lifted (Psalm 3), help comes down (Psalm 121) when eyes lift up. Then, only then do the things of earth grow strangely dim… He is calling us to His own glory and excellence (2 Peter 1) to the light of His glory and grace. That’s encouragement.

My struggle alone will not encourage, though it can be good to share our struggles. We don’t need to lie about reality, but my sin will not lift you up, your sin lifts no one up either. Yes, we boast in our weakness and let God’s mighty power be put on clear display, but we don’t want to participate in the misery loves company mantra of culture.

We are all authentic failures, but in Jesus we are for real overcomers.

That’s what I would like to talk to you about this week. If the Word is going to get in us and we are going to do it we need to become for real encouragers…not participate in a trend that is leaving everyone around us hopeful because no one is doing any better than we are…. Let the encouragement be Jesus, Him only.